Salon Survival Tips: Holding It All Together As A Leader With Gayle Fulbright

This year has been difficult for most industries, and that includes the beauty salon space. The closure in California has especially been tough for a lot of beauty salon and barbershop owners. Joining Ryan Weeden on today’s show is Gayle Fulbright, the owner of Headlines The Salon which has been named a Salon Today Top 200 Salon for thirteen years straight! Gayle gets intimate with Ryan as she talks about the challenges they’re facing during this pandemic shutdown and shares some salon survival tips, including how she’s leading and being a support figure for her staff.

---

Listen to the podcast here:

Salon Survival Tips: Holding It All Together As A Leader With Gayle Fulbright

When the governor closed us, I made a point that, "You guys are going to hear from me. I know you're on furlough, you don't have to, but we're going to continue our group meet. That's one of our communications and Zoom meetings." We had our first one and I'm proud to say all 35 of them showed up. I can't make them when they're furloughed. We embrace being together as much as we can be together on the Zoom.

---

I'm always excited to be here and I'm extremely excited to be here again with you. My guest is somebody that I absolutely adore. She is one of my favorite people to see in the world. She is a shining light in our industry. Her name is Gayle Fulbright. She is just an incredible human being and I can't say that enough. She's always happy. She's always positive. She's such a strong leader, no matter what we're facing in the world, in our industry with her salon through some very troubling times, which we've all faced in 2020. She owns a salon called Headlines The Salon. She's owned it for many years. It's one of the top salons in the country for a long time because she's put so much love into it. It's incredible what she's accomplished. I want to stop talking and welcome Gayle to the show.

Thank you, Ryan. I am so excited to do this because not only are we friends and we've been salon owners in the same County here in San Diego, but you once or twice have been in my salon. It's always like having a celebrity come get his haircut. I get excited and my team runs around, "Ryan Weeden is here." I'm going, "Yeah." We do go way back and I respect you, but I can say you're a friend.

Thank you very much, Gayle. I've been to your salon several times. The reason I'm wearing a hat is because we're closed and I can't go to your salon now because my hair needs some loving.

It does. One of my favorite things that will always stick with me is when we had closure number two. We've had three here in California so far, hopefully, the last one. When we had closure number two, we had a cookie drive and our cookie drive was to raise money for a stylist who needed money during the closure. You came up here and dropped a $100 bill for a couple of cookies. That meant the world to me. Not that it was $100, but you took the time to support other hairdressers. That shows your character and I'll never forget that.

Thank you very much. I knew they were going to be that good, the cookies too. They were $100 cookies.

We're doing another one. This might be timely or not but we're doing a cookie drive next. Even get some dogs involved and whatever money we raised, The Headlines, David and I matched that for the stylists that are out.

You let me know and I will be there. If I can bring one in tow with me, I will. You say, this is the third shutdown in California, which of course it is. I had a salon too and I ended up closing my doors at the beginning of the second shutdown because I couldn't handle it anymore. I had a much smaller salon and thankfully it wasn't my sole form of income. I have my online training, the Masters of Balayage. The decision was easier for me to say goodbye and close that chapter in my life. For you, this is your baby. You have had your salon for such a long time. You have a huge staff. I know you've probably faced some very hard choices. Can you tell me about how this year has been weighing on you?

This year, we'll never have another one like it, knock on wood, I hope. The first time it came around, we all panicked and we were interested in getting loans and we're getting SBA. We're getting PPP and all that stuff. The focus was, let's all survive as an industry. We were closed for 127 days. We opened up for five weeks and closed again for another seven weeks. We opened up and we thought we were done with all this. The governor put us as essential and then he took it away again. Being closed the third time to answer your question, how I feel, I felt like a roller coaster. This time is a lot harder because it's the holidays. As anyone that knows this industry lives in it, this is when we all get real.

People get their hair done, even when they don't need it because Santa Claus is coming to town. It’s balayage, highlights, and tensile in the hair. It's hard because I have single moms that were banking on this time of year to make up for the losses. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. There's a lot of silver linings that have come through. I've made some great salon owner friends. Our friend Sherri from Belle Sirène and a few others. We get together in Zoom all the time to share stories. That's a silver lining. The other is how much loyalty we have with our people and our clients. They love us.

During the openings that we did have, I found we were their hairapist. We were their therapy and every single one sat down with their own COVID story. They wanted to share what they've been doing and what's going on. Not all of them sad, but they just needed to vent because we were their only time out of the house. That's how much trust everyone's clients have in the hairdresser that I don't have to go into and how safe we are. We all know that but how comfortable they felt that they could leave the house, come in and share their stories. It's a blessing to have that trust.

Every time you make a mistake, grow and be better from it.

What have you done over the years to make that clientele so loyal to Headlines The Salon?

I think one is still being here. To be here this long came with a lot of failures and lessons from failures. Knowing that every time you make a mistake, you get to grow and be better from it. Over the test of time, part of what that loyalty is that we're still experiencing from our clients came from them seeing us be humble, be real, to keep adapting and changing what's been going on in our industry for the last decades.

You said you went through a lot of failures. One way I look at failures, thanks to one of my mentors, Brendon Burchard. He calls them data points so that when we look at failure is not a failure. It's like what you said, we learned from our failures. We gather data from what's not working and then we use that data to help us not to have that particular thing happen again so we can push it toward success. What were some of these failures that you mentioned? When you're talking about failures, I'm curious because on the customer experience side of it, the failure, what does that look like? Do you spill coffee on somebody?

Failures are mistakes that you may have made a bad judgment, but you take a failure and you shift and I love Brendon too. Failures, I think are walkouts and I never blame the people leaving me. I blame the leadership, which led them to do something like that. We've had walkouts. When I had my first location, we had twelve chairs and eight people leave at once. To me, that's a failure. It's like a wild shift. From that, I learned that I wasn't an empathetic leader. I wasn't there for them. I took them for granted. With that, I adapted to be a different and more compassionate leader. No mistakes, only lessons on that one. Sometimes failures are weird decisions you make with your business that costs money and you go, "Let's not do that one again." I have my lease renewal. My ten years are up and a lot of big decisions considering the nature of our world now, “Do we jump in and do another ten years? Do we maybe think of other alternatives like you have?” You did a magnificent shift. You're giving to this industry in a different way with a different audience, but you're still giving back and you have to stop and shift sometimes and go, "Am I still doing this for the right reason?" I think I am. I'm going to hang in here for a few more years.

Is there a five-year renewal option instead?

They always want to go big with the ten.

That's a big decision to make, especially with everything going on. It seems to be the light at the end of the tunnel, which is what we can grasp now like, "There is a vaccine." It looks like it's working or hopefully, it's going to work. There might be some normalcy in the next several months where we can hopefully get back to a sense of freedom, where we can go outside without a mask. That's is so exciting.

We're going to have an extraordinary 2021. It's going to boom, not just on beauty industry. I have high hopes that we're going to be ready. I'm an optimist. I don't know about you, but I am ready to travel. Like yourself being an educator, I was an educator once for a product line. I loved traveling. Sometimes I didn't like the hotel rooms alone, but I love the idea that I got to experience different places and meet different people in our industry. I can't wait to get back on the road, even if it's personal. It looks good right now.

Anywhere outside of my house is good right now.

I know it is crazy. It's like, "Maybe we'll go down the beach." We look at things a little differently.

It's almost like you find new gratefulness for being able to just be human. I learned that after the first quarantine when everything's shut down and slowed down considerably, I realized I didn't have as many responsibilities as I used to put on my plate. A lot of those responsibilities were manufactured with me trying to do too much. I realized I didn't need to do all that and I had more time to focus on my family and myself. “I'm going to start working out. I'm going to start taking care of myself again and spend more time with my family.” I realized that was where I found more love and passion for my life. I love what I do, but I became more prioritized in my focus on things that I wanted to do and was grateful for everything that I was taken for granted.

The simple things, all those things and family first. I don't have to preach that to you. You have a beautiful family. We were forced to have more time with them and I hate to use the word forced. We have the ability and the pleasure of having that time with them and to take advantage of that in us is what this whole thing did for us, I believe.

How do you show up for your staff during this time? I can only imagine knowing what hairdressers on average make. I'm sure they do well at your salon because you have a great reputation. You always have clients coming in the door, but I'm sure there are still some that are paycheck to paycheck and scrambling to get by, especially since this is the so-called busy season and it's not this year. How do you show up for them? What are you doing to be a leader and be a support figure for them?

We've had three times at this so the third times a charm. When the governor closed us, I made a point that, "You guys are going to hear from me. I know you're on furlough, you don't have to, but we're going to continue our group meet. That's one of our communications and Zoom meetings." We had our first one and I'm proud to say all 35 of them showed up. I can't make them when they're furloughed. We embrace being together as much as we can be together on the Zoom. I sent out a little survey with them the day before asking them some questions. I don't know about your other readers, but you could throw out a question to the team and I go, "What do you guys think about crickets?"

I had Alexis Thurston on as a guest speaker at one of our first shutdowns and she's talking away and she said, "What do you guys thinking?" No one answered. She calls me later and she goes, "Did I do okay?" I go, "They're hairdressers and they're afraid to talk. Go figure." They're getting better with the Zoom. I feel we have to stay connected as much as we can even though we're not connected. They're liking that. We have a nice patio out front and we had a little get-together. I got the table to give them their holiday gifts. Those that didn't feel like coming in a large gathering, they're trickling in so I can see their faces. I believe staying in as close contact as possible is the best.

What are some of your decisions in keeping your salon open, signing that lease again? I know there's a lot of salon owners that are facing that challenge were, "Should I start to pivot now? Should I continue my lease? Should I open a salon?" There are people that are considering opening a salon still. What advice could you give to somebody that is facing those challenges? Is a physical space still a good idea?

It is strange times. My true answer is to follow your gut. If you can be peaceful with yourself, take your time to meditate, stop, get off that carousel and listen to what you want, who you are and what you have to give. The answer will come out of that. There's no judgment on what you want to do. When I've asked myself that, I've done a lot of soul-searching. Being a salon owner is not easy and I prefer a salon leader. It's also the most fulfilling thing that we can do. Brick and mortar is tough but other than George Clooney with a Flowbee, you can't replace a hairdresser on the line. They still need us physically and mentally. If you have the finances, keep doing it because we're necessary. We are essential. My advice is to follow your gut.

I know that you've also seen other stylists coming to you because other salons in the area have shut down. Is it making the future of your business look even better once this is all free and clear?

Yeah. Unfortunately, with a lot of salons closing down, I think I'm up to six in a 10-mile radius and we're talking large salons. The silver lining is some great talent came here and they were looking for leadership. You didn't have to step up to the plate. This group wants to work and they want to be a part of a team and a part of something that they connect with or able to work. It was flowing well. One thing that I did differently than I haven't done before was I embraced Yelp. A lot of salon owners hate Yelp. I've spoken at the Digital Summit for Salon Today, Modern Magazine, where people don't embrace that.

I found when we came back into business, after the second closure, a lot of people were looking for a new home to have their hair done. We had a surge of over 300 new clients. I went ahead and talked to my Yelp guy and I said, "For a change, I'm going to go with this." For the first time, I paid for the Yelp clicks and that's advice I would give to someone that's doing it. Like I said if you can't beat them, join them with Yelp, but you have to manage it. We were able to fill the seats with these new stylists that came around with all these people looking for a new home.

That's one of my stories too with Yelp is I use Yelp to my advantage. I focused on growing my reputation and Yelp was putting my marketing and my clients coming in on autopilot. It was so important to my growth in the area. I became one of the highest-ranked salon in La Jolla and in a lot of San Diego in a matter of months because I treated it like a sales job. I would reach out to my clients. I would bug them, kindly poke them and say, "Would you mind giving me a positive recommendation?" I would have a ticker sheet and I would say like, "Tried here, tried this date." Sometimes I would try 9 or 10 times with these clients over the course of a year until they felt so guilty that they forgot and like, "I'm so sorry. I've been wanting to," but they're happy clients. They're not rushing to Yelp, but then they finally do it. You start to overtake all of these other salons that have been in business for years and years, that never looked at it as a sales game. People go to Yelp to look for new services. If you're focused on that, it works.

It does and I do. I sometimes go to Yelp to get a quick phone number because you can just click and go. Yelp and Google, I'm going to give Google some credit there too. People will go to that social review and then they go a little deeper. They'll call in and they'll say, "Who do you recommend?" "I recommend Christie." They'll hang up, go to Christie's Instagram. After Christie's Instagram, they'll go to our website. They'll look at our website. It all has to work in synergy and back to asking for reviews. I always tell my stylist that, "If your client is going, 'I love it. I look great.' Say, 'Do you want to do a shout out for me in there?'" They're always willing to do it. It’s not cheating on Yelp at all to tell them to put it out somewhere else. It has been great and it's been an extra great tool for 2020.

That's a great thing that you could be focusing on when you're not working. You got a lot of time to stew about all the terrible things or you could focus on, "What can I still do to keep my business moving forward?"

Which is take classes like what you're offering. This is a great opportunity when you're shut down to take all these online classes and you guys are getting good at it.

Surround yourself with like-minded or people smarter than you.

You can't cut hair online unless I'm using a Flowbee. You still need a hairdresser and you still need to have those live classes to get that hands-on touch, but in the interim and for quick education, yes.

That's what I told them during the third shutdown meeting is, "Use this time. Up your game with your social media. If you're afraid of doing a TikTok, if you're afraid of learning reels, this is a good time to practice it. You've got hours." Hopefully, that's what they're doing with their time, instead of complaining and looking at the negativity of it.

How are you keeping your guests informed on everything that's happening? How are you keeping them excited and letting them know what's happening?

My front desk people are calling them upfront. We stay in touch with them and ask them how they're doing. We let them know what's going on. A lot of emails and a lot of eblasts. We're up in our game with our private store on our website. It's working because I get notified every time somebody buys some on my phone. It’s not that it's annoying that I see “ching ching” happen, but we're doing daily blasts of specials because as everyone does this time of year, we stock up on a lot of holiday gifts. We're calling and letting people know about that. Having 35 employees, I feel a little army out there with them all doing social media. On GroupMe, we'll post whatever this day’s specialist for blow off for $160 and encourage them all to put it onto their Instagram also. Not just trying to sell clients, but staying in touch with them with phone calls. I think they appreciate it. Sometimes it takes a long time to get them off the phone because they want to talk to you all about what's going on in their life. It's time well spent to stay connected.

You're a hairapist. They miss that interaction.

I captured that by the way

Did you? That's great.

A long time ago, I am a hairapist. I work on the interior, not just the exterior of that head.

You need to. It's funny because I'm sure you know people that have gone to a hairdresser for years and years, and they might even say they don't give you the best haircut or the best color, but they love the person so much. They're not going to stop going to them because you've had that internal connection.

They'd come in and they go, "Was that supposed to be an asymmetric Bob the time?" "No." "That's okay. Just fix it up. Did you know what happens this last time I saw you?"

You say, “No, your hair goes faster on that side.”

You’re like, "Did anyone else notice?"

What are you doing for the holidays as far as getting ready for the future? There's so much unknown. It's hard to even know what to talk about. I know somebody like you, you're a big goal setter. You have different metrics for which you focus on to be successful in the salon and make sure you're always moving forward. What are you looking toward?

This time coming back, instead of focusing on retail and the usual metrics, because we meet with our team one-on-one at least once a month, retention. We were talking about with Yelp. If we're going to get these new clients in, what is it that we can do to retain them? I don't, being pre-booked them at the front desk when they're leaving. What can you do to make it so special that one visit, they have to book more? We're role-playing a little bit on conversations, your listening skills and that accountability of being human-to-human with them.

Retention is huge and it will be when we go back to is to let them know that we want them to keep coming back. I already mentioned that I'm thinking about either staying here ten more years or maybe a new location. That makes a lot of energy. I have to make that decision by January 31st. Focusing on the team that we have now and keeping them together, cohesive, and we're one of those unicorns in our industry. We're commissioned salon, call us whatever you want. That's our point of difference in a good way, but you got to work it.

When you say that you're unicorn because you’re a commission salon, they have the things changed so much in the salon world that, is it more of a hybrid model now that people have, or is it mostly booth rental? I thought there were still a lot of commission salons.

Not many. My little group, including Sherri from Belle Sirène and the girls at Style Lounge and stuff, we're still doing the employee-based. I believe we're maybe 10% of our industry here in Southern California. I'm not saying around the country. The hybrid model, I'm not opposed to even looking into that for the future. Back in the day, I would always say that hairdressers are in the 3 to a 5-year program. In about five years, they start getting busy, good, confident and cocky, "I can do this on my own. Peace out. Thank you." Sometimes they leave without a thank you. We lost seven people near the end of the year to go to Solace and it's their choice. One of them was only in here for eleven months and thought that going on her own at that time made me stop and think, "The industry is shifting a little bit." It's because of Instagram, social media, they can build their clientele up a lot quicker. Learning how to do great balayage, they don't need 60 clients anymore. They have so many because they're longer appointments. I do see a shift in our industry a little.

I wonder if that's working out for those people that break away quickly because I worked in a salon suite for maybe 2.5 years or so. Although I loved it, it's like you have to find ways to stay motivated because you don't have team members that you can be inspired by. You don't have a salon leader. It's all up to you. If there's a problem, it's up to you, it means it's a real taste of, "I'm on my own."

If you don't have that color because the client comes in and wants a tone. You're like, "You need to let me know in advance."

That happened to me when I first started booth renting and I was broke. I could afford my chair and I was making enough to start working on my own, but I couldn't afford a full-color line. I must have had 40 colors or something like that. Most of those are naturals. I didn't have any of the reds. Somebody came in and it happened a couple of times where I'm like, "I don't have that color. Can we reschedule?" Thankfully it worked out and she wanted to get it done because I had a good reputation. I'll go to the store, get something, come back and do it. I'm like, "I don't have it."

There are pros and cons. After we had people leave, I had four that did come from suites that were like, "I'm done. I miss being around people." One came saying, "I used to educate way back in the day." I miss the opportunity of having babies and having young talent. “They're always wanting to learn from me.” She came here and asked if she could be my educator. I was like, "That's a dream come true." It's an interesting time that we're in now in the hair business. My big fear was with all these shutdowns that I didn't want too many people to get too used to being on their own thinking that, "This is what my life is supposed to be." I know when they came back after the second one, they were as happy to be together as we could.

It's been a real tough time for our emotional and mental states because I feel for somebody that might be trapped in a small apartment that might not have a boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse or an animal. I've been there in my life and I was depressed at those times where I couldn't afford to go out and do things. If this has happened to me at that age, I don't know what I would be doing now. I would probably be in a drunken stupor trying to get through every single day. There have been some days I've woken up, I've been on the lower side and I'm like, "It's 11:00. It's a Wednesday, it's fine. I got everything done. I'm going to start drinking." What are some of the biggest lessons that you've learned over your years as a salon owner? This is a shift.

Surround yourself with like-minded or people smarter than you. There are so many people out there that we can learn from. As you mentioned, Brendon Burchard. Get them on your board of directors is what I call it. Surround yourself around people that can inspire you. Like I did with my little San Diego group, we're like-minded and one has strengths in one area, one has this to help with that loneliness. You're not alone. We're all out there trying to navigate uncharted waters. Find yourself a group or a mentor, whether that's a book mentor or someone on video these days because you can't go to classes anymore. The other lesson is, take time to be alone with yourself and to be okay with that because a lot of answers are in there and we just need to stop.

My daily routine now is to go downstairs next to the couch with my dog, do a little bit of meditating and pick up a book. Now, I'm reading Super Attractor and find a lot of joy with that and then plot out the day. As what you were saying, "I didn't take the time to do that before." If I were to talk to a young salon owner, I'd say, "Take time to find out what you want because you can't give it away if you don't know what you have." People look up to us as leaders, salon owners to guide them. You got to have yourself together. Be fearless. We spoke about it already. There are no mistakes. There are lessons. Go out there and do something. Look what you did. You've made a huge shift right in the time when you you're taking care of a young family and God bless you.

Take time to be alone with yourself and to be okay with that because a lot of the answers are within you.

It not an easy time now. The lack of sleep and everything like that. I keep giving as much credit to my wife as possible because she's the stay-at-home mom and she's still the Creative Director for Masters of Balayage and makes everything pretty. She's the rockstar.

Even if you don't pay her, pay her more.

I get all the credit because everybody sees my face, but she's huge with everything like that and such a great supporter. It wouldn't be possible without her. You're doing an amazing job wherever you are.

I got to do a shout-out to my partner, David, who knows this industry. For the last several years we work off each other and he does a lot of the marketing and signage. He hates when I say that, but keeps us looking good too. It was like, "You have such a great looking brand." I go, "I do nothing with that."

Is he the one responsible for all of that?

Yeah. He does all the logo, branding, and marketing, everything that we have. His latest one is we have hand sanitizers with our logo on it. I'm going, "That's a great idea." The thing is to surround yourself with people smarter than you. I don't do our Instagram. As a matter of fact, if I did, we wouldn't be very good. I'm told them, "I'm a born again Millennial. I'm not a Millennial." I have great people, Alex Walls that manages that. I've got Summer that helps with the great content. We're lucky to have people that can do other things for us.

Everything you're doing keep doing it because you're creating such an impact in our industry and for the lives of everybody that not only comes into your salon but works in your salon. I feel that whenever I step inside and I hope to do that again very soon because I need a haircut.

Rock a new look. Mullets are coming back. Everybody throwing it out.

Thank you, Gayle, for being here and being part of the show. How can people find out more about you and more about your salon?

For people to find out more about Headlines and me because now Headlines is a lot greater, Headlines The Salon, Encinitas, California, follow us on our Instagram. It's simple as @HeadlinesTheSalon. Check out our Yelp. If you want to learn a little bit more about Yelp, I take pride in managing that when it's turned back on. It's Gayle Fulbright. I want to say, thank you, Ryan, for giving me this opportunity. It's fun to chat. As always, we like to catch up. You don't get to have that relaxing experience when I'm in your face while you're having your haircut.

It's very relaxing. I love it. Sean, I have a shout-out to him. He does an amazing job on my hair and he gives me a facial massage, which of course I haven't been able to do since the COVID thing. It was so cool.

He's a rock star, Sean Danielsen. We'll give him a shout-out. 

Do you know what his Instagram is?

I think it’s @SeanDanielsen_.

Give him a follow because he’s rad.

Go to our website and check it out. You can see everybody. We redid the website because we have time. 

Now is the time for doing things like that. Be working on your business when you can't be working in your business.

Thanks, Ryan. This was fun.

You got it, Gayle. I wish the best for you and your Headlines family.

 Important Links: 

• Headlines The Salon
• Masters of Balayage
• Super Attractor 
• Yelp
• Yelp - Headlines The Salon
• @HeadlinesTheSalon - Instagram
• @SeanDanielsen_ - Instagram

About Gayle Fulbright

Gayle Fulbright started Headlines for Hair in 1987 with a vision to open a salon built on teamwork, high-quality services, and an unforgettable experience.  In 2011, Gayle decided it was time to reinvent and rebrand her business. She moved locations and changed the name to Headlines The Salon. Now with 18 chairs and over 35 team members, HTS has been named a Salon Today Top 200 Salon for 13 years straight! David Linde joined Gayle in 2013. With his 15+ years of experience and expertise in marketing and advertising, he is an incredible asset to the team. Their partnership is built on a mutual passion for this industry. "Our dream is to have a team of like-minded individuals who work together to provide love and beauty to our clients. It truly is a gift we get to give.” They pride themselves on integrity, education, and giving back to the community.